Time left to Enter

The Challenge

Canada faces a growing opioid crisis. Securing data on opioid-related overdoses and harms is crucial to the design and delivery of effective interventions. And yet, timely and accurate data, particularly on non-fatal overdoses occurring in communities, remains limited.

MaRS seeks to engage innovative Canadians — people and organizations of all backgrounds and skills — to propose and test new data sets, sources and methodologies to bolster existing information and better measure opioid overdoses and harms in our communities.

What are the Data Gaps?

Getting information on opioid use and related overdoses is difficult. Public health organizations predominately rely on emergency or medical services information, hospitalization records and coroner and medical examiner reports. However, many opioid overdoses do not result in death, nor do they always involve an emergency or medical response. That means crucial information remains uncaptured.

Additionally, valuable secondary information related to an overdose (where and when it happened) is often missing. Such granular data is critical to the design, delivery and targeting of better interventions aimed at reducing opioid-related harms.

Who Should Participate?

What Can You Do Right Now?

Register

Click the “Accept Challenge” button above to register to compete in the challenge.

Click the “Follow the Challenge” button above to be notified of any updates.

Learn More

Read the complete Challenge Guidelines to familiarize yourself with the rules and submission requirements for this challenge.

Explore the Resourcessection to find documents relating to the submission.

Browse through the Useful Linkssection to become more informed on the opioid crisis.

Read the FAQsection to find quick answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.

Share

Share this challenge with your friends and family or anyone who might be interested in creating the future by using the “Share” button above.

Talk to Us

Use the Forum section above to tell us what you think of the challenge or to ask any questions.

Challenge Sponsors

Lead

MaRS Discovery District - MaRS is a not-for-profit innovation hub dedicated to driving economic and social prosperity by harnessing the full potential of innovation. MaRS works with entrepreneurs and investors to launch and grow companies that have broad economic and societal impact, and convenes governments and industry stakeholders to enable widespread adoption in complex markets and systems.

Partners

Funder and Principal Partner - Public Health Agency of Canada - The Public Health Agency of Canada has been created to deliver on the Government of Canada's commitment to help protect the health and safety of all Canadians. Its activities focus on preventing chronic diseases, like cancer and heart disease, preventing injuries and responding to public health emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks.

Supporting Partner - Statistics Canada - Statistics Canada produces statistics that help Canadians better understand their country — its population, resources, economy, society and culture. In addition to conducting a Census every five years, there are about 350 active surveys on virtually all aspects of Canadian life. As Canada's central statistical office, Statistics Canada is legislated to serve this function for the whole of Canada and each of the provinces and territories.

While the above codes include deaths due to fentanyl overdose, they are not exclusive to such, meaning that the numbers would likely over-estimate the number of deaths due to fentanyl overdose.

In ICD-10 drugs are not classified as illegal and/or prescription. And, the external/underlying cause codes for drug overdoses are very broad (i.e.: not exclusive to specific named drugs). Better results might be found in the multiple cause of death data for named drugs.